


The Cats of Skyhold

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cats, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-09-13 08:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16889499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: On the day of his trial, Magister Livius Erimond turns every last member of the Inquisition in Skyhold into cats.While Erimond hunts for the missing Inquisitor Trevelyan, the Inner Circle race against the clock to find a way to reverse the spell--before their feline transformations become permanent.





	1. Dorian

 

The mouse was behind the bookcase.

Dorian could feel it in his whiskers. He could hear its little nails scratching the floor and its thick orange teeth gnawing on the wood. Its heartbeat was a soft hum, and his claws slid out of their sheaths in pleasure.

He couldn’t remember caring this much about mice before. He found he cared about little apart from the delicious morsel scurrying around near his feet.

_What was my name? Dorian. Dorian of House…something...and I am…._

The mouse scurried out from behind the bookcase. He sprang and swiped at it with his paws. The mouse darted into a crack in the wall and disappeared.

Dorian drew himself up. This wasn't normal.

A white cloak and a pair of boots lay puddled on the floor, and a quill was staining the open pages of a book on his desk. The sour, purple tang of magic hung thickly in the air.

 _Did I turn myself into a cat?_  

That seemed unlikely. He wouldn't know where to start to turn himself into a cat, let alone how to do it by accident. 

_Someone did this to me, then._

He wrapped his tail around himself. That morning, he had decided not to attend the final day of judgments against the prisoners of Adamant. He had feigned illness, citing a desire to stay away from the crowds that would no doubt be drawn to Erimond's trial. The truth was that he had been avoiding Trevelyan since their embarrassing misunderstanding in the library. The thought of standing at the back of the great hall, staring longingly at the man whose affections he had failed to win, was enough to curdle his stomach. Dorian had opted to spend the morning moping instead and had retired to his room.

He must have been at his desk when it happened. There had been a pressure inside his skull like an oncoming headache, and then, oddly, his ears had popped. The pain of it had surprised him, he recalled that much, and then....this. Man to cat. That sudden, that simple. 

 _Think_. _Who could have done this to you? Assuming, of course, you were the intended target._

He uncurled his tail. It was entirely possible this spell had a larger range than just his bedroom. If that was the case, he would need to investigate the rest of Skyhold to see if anyone else was affected. 

He trotted up to his bedroom door.

Ah.

This was a problem.

He flung himself at the doorknob, and was grateful no one was around to see him dangle off of it by his front paws. A queasy chill sank into his stomach as he considered that this might be more difficult than he thought.

Giving up on the door, he hopped up on his desk and nudged open the window.

 

* * *

 

Dorian dropped into a tree outside his bedroom and clawed his way down into the grass of a tiny courtyard. He padded down the gravel path to the first open door he could find. It led into the guest wing, where the reek of magic was even stronger.

His nose was sharp as a cat, and he stopped every few feet to take in the scents. Dust. Rat dropping. Antivan twill from the rugs. Subtler notes of civet and ambergris from an Orlesian lady’s perfume. It was not much farther down the hall when he encountered his first pile of clothing.

The dress sat like an enormous, puffy mushroom on the floor. A cracked teacup and a puddle of a chamomile sat on the flagstones beside it, along with a butterfly mask spiraled with gold filigree and dappled with tiny grey pearls.

Dorian pushed his nose into the dress. The fabric was coated in fur and tiny drops of piss.

So, he hadn’t been the only one transformed. 

He pulled out and padded his way down the hall to the next pile of clothing: this one a crisp military uniform with tall, black cavalry boots. A little puddle of vomit was congealed on the epaulettes.

Down the hallway there were more piles of clothing, each one covered in fur and hairballs.

 _The spell must have taken everyone at the same time._ He strained his ears. He could hear the dripping of wax from candles and the scratch of a feather pushed by a draft across the floor, but other than that the hall was silent.

He made his way down the hallway until he turned the corner and froze.

A calico and a tabby were tussling with one another on the rug. They were batting at something limp and damp on the floor between them. 

“Thank the Maker,” said Dorian. “I was starting to worry I was alone here.”

The two cats stopped playing and rolled to their feet. The thing they had been playing with was a spider whose legs had been chewed off. The tabby picked up it and held it in his mouth, as if afraid Dorian might steal it.

“Where is everyone?” Dorian took a step closer. The two cats crouched down and watched him with wide, yellow eyes. “Has the entire castle been bewitched? Who did this to us? Where is the Inquisitor?”

The two cats looked at each other.

“Do I have to make a terrible pun and ask if a certain animal has got your tongue?” said Dorian. “I asked you a question.”

“Who cares?” said the calico.

“Who cares?” echoed the tabby. “I mean, seriously?”

“What do you mean, ‘who cares?’ We’ve been turned into house pets. You can’t possibly not be alarmed by that.”

“Got this spider,” murmured the tabby. “My spider.”

“My spider,” said the calico.

And then they were off, skittering across the flagstones and bunching up the rug behind them. Dorian was left alone and more confused than ever.

Had everyone gone mad?

It was at that moment that he noticed there was an odor in the hall—a scent so offensive, so odious, that it shocked him he had not noticed it before. It was sprayed all over the walls, like a middle finger left specifically for him. The scent burned his nostrils, and he bared his teeth in a snarl.   

Those two cats had sprayed here. On his wall! On his corner!

Dorian’s hackles raised. It was truly unacceptable. As if those boys had not been awful enough—of all the rude, idiot things to do. 

He raised his tail and sprayed a jet of foaming piss up the wall. _My wall!_ He thought viciously. _Mine! Mine!_

To make sure they got the point, he rubbed his back against every corner he could find and took a hot shit on the rug.

When he was done, he couldn’t say why he had done any of it.

More than a little disturbed, he continued down the hallway and followed his nose into the garden beyond.

 

* * *

 

The guest wing of Skyhold had its own gardens, where visitors to the Inquisition could relax and wait for their appointments. It was thick with flowers and birdbaths and all manner of holy statuary. Dorian prowled across the grass, ears and nose alert.  

The further in he went, the more clothing he found.

There were piles of it everywhere. Orlesian summer-gowns, Dalish green tunics, apostate dusters and rebel mage robes. There were the day-in-day-out armor of Skyhold’s official guard, and the lighter, beaten leather tunics of Sister Nightingale’s spies and agents. Chantry smocks, Revered mother headdresses, laundry maid togas and servants' simple garb. All of it abandoned, most of it clawed, a great deal of it soaked in feces.

And everywhere around the fallen clothing were the cats. 

“Oy, oy, mate. What are you doing by my pond?”

Dorian stopped. The voice came from a fat yellow tom sitting beside a goldfish pond. Dorian assessed the pond in question. Its surface was dimpled with midges, and below it the orange shadows of fish swam in hypnotic circles. 

“Obviously, I’m declaring it my commonwealth and annexing it to my kingdom,” said Dorian. “Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare.” The cat arched his back. “This pond is mine.”

“Your pond? The last I recalled, this pond and everything else in this castle belonged to the Inquisitor. You remember him, yes? Terrifying bald fellow? Scar on his head?” 

The cat hissed. “Mine.”  

A dark instinct tugged at Dorian, urging him to spring forth and meet the challenge. He wanted to fight, to rip this brute to pieces.

Shaking his head, he ignored the urge and continued on.

“That’s right, move along, mate. Don’t come back unless you want your guts torn out. MINE!”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the garden was equally unhelpful. Dorian tried to ask the cats he encountered what had happened to them, but the response was always the same: mine this, mine that. Most did not even bother speaking to him. They hissed or spat or came nosing up to purr against him like bored house pets, and he was forced to shove them aside and move on.

 _It’s as if they’ve completely lost themselves to their animal minds._ Was this what shapeshifting did to people? Brought out their basest instincts and buried any humanity they might have within them?

Even worse, Dorian felt the lure of it himself.

It was like a fog slowly suffocating his mind. He wanted to claw every cat that challenged him to bits. He wanted to nap and chase bugs and lie in the sun. Maybe later, after more napping, he would double back and fish one of the carp out of that pond. 

That was the cat speaking, and it was imperative that he keep that part of him as separate as possible. The human inside him was still strong. 

But the fog was taking over. He could feel himself slowly trickling away, like sand in an hourglass. 

He didn’t want to speculate what that meant.

“Messere! Messere!”

Dorian turned. A little russet queen barreled toward him through a patch of azaleas.

“Messere, please, I have lost my Jacques—he ran off with a striped whore and now they are rolling in the lilac. You must _do_ something.”

“You can...speak normally?” asked Dorian.

“Of course, I can. Can’t you hear me? And hear them?”

Dorian sat down and wrapped his tail around himself. The yowls of feline mating floated over a hedge.

“Not to be rude,” said Dorian, “but do you really think that’s the most pressing concern right now?”

The little Orlesian’s back rose in agitation. “This accursed castle is full of mages. They must know how this was done to us. They can change us back.”

“An optimistic theory,” said Dorian. “Though I highly doubt it was one of the Inquisition’s mages who did this to us.”

“Inquisition mages, Venatori mages, apostate mages. They are all the same." The Orlesian bubbled with distaste. "Your accent—are you the Lord Dorian Pavus?”

“I am.”

“You are one of the Inquisitor's favorites, yes? I demand you go to him this instant and ask him when this ridiculous little magic trick will be over. I am naked, cold, and my husband is making kittens with a servant. This is far too much. Trevelyan can kiss our donation to the Inquisition goodbye. We will be returning to our estate in Val Chevin posthaste.”

“Madame, your concerns are my concerns, I assure you, but first I need you to answer some questions. Do you know who did this to us? Did you witness any magic or spellwork being done?”

“Spells?” She sounded mortified. “Mon dieu, no. I was sitting in this garden with my husband when it happened. There was a sharp pain in my head, and then my clothes fell in over me. Some of the cats ran off to fight each other. I saw two chase a sparrow up a tree like their life depended on it. And then my Jacques—it is like he does not hear me. He bit me when I tried to stop him. Bit me! And now he’s on top of that _catin_ —” 

“Yes, I’ve gathered that part. You haven’t left this garden?”

“I am afraid to. There were terrible crashes in the great hall. There—you can see the broken windows from here.”

Dorian followed the line of her sight. The stained glass windows that adorned the tower of the great hall had been blown out, with only teeth of purple and red and green glass remaining.

“The trial,” said Dorian slowly.

“Against that terrible magister? It was so crowded inside, we could not get a seat.”

Dorian’s mind was racing. “This explosion, did it happen before or after we became cats?”

“Before. The noise startled me, and I ran away from my Jacques. When it became quiet, I went back to find him, and he was on top of that skinny minx.”

Dorian flared his nostrils. The scent of magic still hung like smoke over the garden, but there were currents inside it, gentle tides pulled along by the eddies and airways.

The scent had grown stronger as he neared the great hall.

“Messere Pavus? Where are you going? Get back here!”

Dorian ignored her and scampered down the garden path. Spotted butterflies exploded from a hazel bush he sprang through, and dew-damp leaves of hollyhock and lilac brushed his pelt. He ran until he saw an archway leading to the main gardens and darted through it, leaving the sounds of feline lovemaking behind him.

 

* * *

 

The answer was so obvious, Dorian wasn’t sure why he hadn’t considered it sooner.

Trevelyan had been holding court that morning—day three of judgment against the unlucky Wardens brought back from Adamant for trial. There were no fewer than a hundred war criminals to be arraigned before His Worship to beg for their lives, and the proceedings started early and lasted long.

They were scheduled to end today, with Magister Livius Erimond being the final defendant to be dragged before the dais.

Erimond.

This had his greasy fingerprints all over it. 

If the spell had ensorcelled all of Skyhold, then the castle was defenseless. The Venatori could march on them at any moment, and they would meet no resistance at all. Corypheus may very well have just won the war, and as for the Inquisitor—

The Inquisitor.

Trevelyan would have been on his throne, right at the epicenter of the spell that had all but blown the roof off the great hall and turned them all into cats.

_Why weren’t you there with him, Pavus? Because you misread the situation as usual? Because you thought there was something deeper going on between you two? You tried to kiss the man and he recoiled from you. You went and ruined everything, and now because of that you weren't there for him when he needed you most. Fool. Fool. Fool._

Dorian sprinted through the grass. There were fewer cats at this end of the garden, and he sailed over the neat little pots of herbs onto the stone walkway. The door that led to the great hall, thankfully, was ajar. Dorian paused on its threshold and sniffed the air.

The Veil was ragged here.

Magic surged freely into the world, and the heavy, caustic sting of spellwork made his eyes water. 

He darted inside. A guard helmet was upside down on the floor, and beside it a wine goblet was dripping into the grout between two stones. He peeked his head around the door into the great hall.

At this time of day, light should have pressed gently through the stained-glass windows behind the throne. Instead, the stained glass that had been so lovingly assembled into the pattern of the Inquisition’s all-seeing eye was shattered, and light streamed in with such intensity that Dorian was reminded uneasily of how they had first found the castle when they arrived all those months ago: abandoned, desolate, home only to weeds and animals.

Dorian took a tentative step inside. Rubble and masonry were scattered everywhere, and the entire wall above Josephine’s office had collapsed and buried the door. Dust hung in the air, and little motes of purple magic and spell residue clung in a dense cloud beneath the ceiling. Broken glass covered the floor, and everywhere, like beds of mushrooms, were piles of clothing.

He looked up at the dais and gasped.

Where the Inquisitor’s throne should have been was a crater of charred stone. The throne itself had been shattered into a thousand splinters and was scattered across the floor.

_Why weren’t you there to protect him?_

“Trevelyan!” He opened his mouth and meowed. It reverberated in the empty great hall. “Jack! If you don’t answer, I’m going to kill you! Where are you?!”

The only answer was his own echo. 

A chill wind ruffled his fur. The double doors that led down into the yard were wide open. He sat there dumbfounded until he felt someone watching him.

He was on his feet in an instant. Something stirred under the table Varric sometimes commadered to work on his serials. There was a little pile of torn, tattered clothing under it, and a wide-brimmed hat that was offensively hideous in its lack of taste.

Dorian stalked closer. There, peering out from under the hat, were two watery blue eyes.

“Cole?”

“Hello.” The little white cat curled up tighter, as if that might make himself disappear. “You’re a cat, too.”

Dorian sniffed around him. “Are you all right?” 

“Yes? Are you?”

“I’m fine, but Cole, I need to know, were you here? Did you see? Where is the Inquisitor?”

Cole slinked out from under the hat. Up close, his lank, oddly musty smelling fur was more yellow than white. He stood there, swaying a little, his already huge blue eyes made enormous inside a tiny cat skull.

“Yes. Burning, bright like a ruby, _don’t show it yet, don’t show it yet,_ chains like cold fire on my wrists, _don’t show it yet,_ let him hear me laugh.”

A prickle ran up Dorian’s spine. “Erimond.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“They brought Erimond inside to stand trial. Crowded, cramped, air stale with too much breathing, too many people. The Inquisitor sentenced him to die, and Erimond laughed. He did something—bright—and then everything shrank. We were all cats, and Erimond wasn’t. He tried to kill the Inquisitor, but Trevelyan ran, and then all the cats ran, and Erimond didn’t care who he hit, he just….fired.”

Dorian reappraised the rubble lying around them. The floor was dusty and covered in grit and spilt masonry, and in that mess were the paw prints of hundreds of cats, all fleeing in the direction of the open doors of the great hall.

“Was anyone killed?” asked Dorian.

“I don’t think so. There was blood and burning, but….no.” 

Dorian had a mental image of several hundred cats pouring in a waterfall down the front steps of Skyhold into the lower yards. It certainly explained where everyone had disappeared to; the noise and smell alone of the lower yards would be enough to draw any wandering or nearby cats down into what was, no doubt, a veritable orgy of violence and sex and feline frolicking.

“Have you noticed the way some people are acting?”

“It’s becoming harder for them to remember themselves,” said Cole. “Some people don’t want to remember themselves, so they sink, like a stone, into screeching, scampering, scratching. But it’s eating away at all of us. We’ll all forget ourselves soon.” 

Dorian had been trying not to look at it, but there it was. This type of transmogrification had a short reversal period. The more time was wasted, the more their new shapes would become permanent.

“We’re running out of time,” said Dorian.

“Yes,” said Cole. 

In the dim light, Cole was a sad little thing. His fur hung off of him in lank, smelly rags. Dorian sighed and began to wash his ears. “I suppose it would be too easy for you to know where any of the war councilors are right now?”

“No. I’m sorry. It was very hard to think for a long time. It still is.”

“And Erimond?”

“He’s in the castle somewhere. Seeking, searching. I don’t know where.”

That wasn’t reassuring. Livius Erimond was the only human left in Skyhold now, and that meant he was dangerous in a thousand different ways.

“Then we’ll have to make due on our own.”

“Yes.” Cole blinked. “You want to find the Inquisitor. But...” Cole's brow wrinkled. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

“What? Why?" 

“You want to find the Inquisitor because you’re worried. Quick, quipping, qualified. He always knows what to do. But there isn’t time.”

“Cole—”

“No, you know I’m right. We don’t have time. You’re smart, Dorian, and you’re not being smart now. You’re thinking with one muscle, and not the other.”

“I had no idea you’d become so incisive,” said Dorian.

“Trevelyan made me more human, “said Cole, in a wondering voice. “I see much more now.”

"He has that effect on people, doesn't he?" 

Dorian swallowed the grief that threatened to choke him. As much as guilt urged him to find the Inquisitor, he needed to be realistic about their situation. Time was ticking, and if he was to run into Erimond, the game would end. A cat could not stand up to a Tevinter magister, let alone a magister of Erimond’s bloody-mindedness. 

No, as much as it pained him, the best thing he could do for the Inquisitor was try to find a way to reverse this spell.

No matter how much he hated himself for not being there to protect Trevelyan in the first place.

“You’re right,” said Dorian. “Though it won't be an easy task. I don't know how Erimond did this to us, or what tools he used to accomplish it.” His eyes widened in sudden revelation. “But I might know someone who does.”

 


	2. Sera

Sera’s stomach growled. 

The lizard had peeked its head out of a little crack in the armory wall and was sunning itself with its eyes closed. It was a fat, juicy lizard, and its nervous little heartbeat made her mouth water. 

She crept closer on her belly. Ten feet. Eight. She was so close she could imagine it squirming under her paws.

Six feet. Five.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

She sprang. It darted—

Her paws clapped on dirt as the tip of its tail wriggled back into its hidey hole and disappeared.

“Piss!” It wasn’t fair. Food didn’t used to run away from her. Now sparrows laughed like prigs from their trees, crows had stabby beaks, and mice were as quick as thieves. She wished she had a sweet roll.

What was a sweet roll again? She could taste the memory of something sticky and cinnamon on her tongue, but couldn’t remember where she’d eaten it before. For some reason, that got her scared, so she jumped up on all fours and swiveled her ears to better listen to the sounds of the castle.

Had her head always hurt when she tried to remember what the castle was called?

Sera threw the thoughts away. If they didn’t get her dinner, they didn’t matter. All that mattered now was the pain in her stomach and, in a way, that was all that had ever mattered in her life.

She gave her paws a quick wash and went hunting.

 

* * *

 

The upper bailey was thick with cats. Cats in trees, cats on walls, cats fighting in the dirt and fucking in the grass. Sera darted from shadow to shadow, but it was hard to go ten feet without someone’s big yellow eyes turning on her.

She was walking past a barrel when a big tabby with a notched ear sitting on top of it asked her anxiously, “Have you seen First Enchanter Fiona? I’d go find her in the castle myself, but, you know, that man is walking around.”

The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She ran, leaving him and his stupid barrel behind her.

_That man is walking around._

Something was trying to surface in her head. It crawled like a spider inside her skull.

_That man is walking around._

Creepy shite. She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to find meat, something she could tear to pieces while it screamed.

_That man is walking around._

No, no, no, it didn't matter. it wasn't important. The only important thing in the world was food. The only important thing was—

A succulent scent wafted under her nose. 

Her sinuses swelled. The only important thing in the world was….

She padded across the muddy yard in front of the Herald’s Rest tavern. The door was propped open with a brick, and the inside was empty and silent. The floor was covered in heaps of clothes, and everywhere there were dropped flagons dripping between cracks in the floorboards.

And over the fire, on a spit, was a roast chicken.

The only important thing in the world was chicken.

She brushed her whiskers over the threshold. It reeked of mud and horse dung and tobacco spit and bootblack. If anyone was in there, it would be hard to smell them until it was too late.

Screw it.

She darted into the tavern and hopped up on the chair beside the fireplace. The heavy iron spit was threaded through a hole in the stone, and she had to stand up on two legs to wrap her paws around it.

“Oof, tits.” She put one back paw against the stone and started to tug the spit out. She felt the heavy dip and wobble as the far side of the spit fell out of its slot. Tugging inch by inch, the hole above her head was eventually blocked by the flesh of the chicken. After a few more tugs, the spit passed through it, and the chicken rolled down into the fire and onto the dirty floorboards.

Sera let the spit fall with a thud to the floor. She hopped down and picked up the chicken in her mouth.

Right. Now to get it somewhere where no one could nick it from her.

She turned her head back and forth. There was a staircase going up to….somewhere safe. That would have to do.

The chicken was bigger and heavier than she expected. She bit into its sweating meat and walked it backwards up the first step. The chicken left a sweaty smear on the wood, and she dragged it up another step, then another, then another.

If she could just get it to the room at the top of the stairs, she could push the door shut and eat it all by herself.

“Piss wallet.” Sera dragged the chicken onto the landing between the floors. The chicken was broiling hot and burned her tongue. She set it down and licked her fur until the stinging stopped.

The scared feeling fluttered back into her gut. It was weird. She shouldn’t be licking herself. It was hard to think with the smell of the chicken squeezing her gut and the cats yowling outside, so she looked out the window beside her, out into the practice yard beside the tavern.

There was a small platform constructed there. Up on it was as big block of wood with a basket under it. There was a kitten asleep in the basket now, but Sera knew that what was supposed to go there was heads.

Not that it got used much. Everyone knew the Inquisitor was a softy. Erimond was the only prisoner who was sure to lose his head this year, and that was because—

Sera jumped to her feet. Her tail stood on end.

Erimond.

He was on trial today.

She had been there.

She remembered.

The judgment had been that morning. The Inquisitor had come out of his little side door and sat down on his throne. Sera was in the back and couldn't see his face, but she could tell from the quiet that he was wearing his scary Inquisitor expression. The only sound was the jangle of Erimond's chains as he was led down the aisle. 

Sera had left early. It had been hot and crowded in the great hall, and she couldn’t hear shite from the back anyway. All judging was the same: it took too long, was boring, and the only part worth seeing was the lop-your-head-off.

She had been going down the castle steps, when there was a flash of red light. 

Her ears had popped. There was this big, shrinking pain behind her eyes, then actual shrinking, and her clothes were swimming all over her. A bunch of people screamed, and the screaming turned into yowls. Then lizards.

Oh. Shite.

Sera flew down the stairs. The chicken thumped down the steps behind her, and she came to a skittering halt on the flagstones.

Erimond was the man walking around in Skyhold.

But chicken.

Trevelyan was in trouble.

But chicken.

Trevelyan might even be dead. She needed to find him, find everyone, and make sure the stupid mages got smart and changed them back.

But _chicken_.

Her stomach growled. The chicken was stuffed with bacon and garlic and herbs and all the things that drove her crazy. She could taste the lemon of its flesh like little needles on her tongue.

It was like her head was wrestling with itself. The cat brain was all teeth and claws and the Sera brain was trying to keep its jaws from closing around her head.

 _Toughen up_ , she told herself. The Inquisition needs you. After you save them, you can eat ten million chickens, and it’ll all be on Trevelyan’s dime.

That decided it.

 _I’m coming._ She ran for the door to the tavern. _Just hang on._

She was almost to the door when a shadow stepped into her way.  

Sera skidded to a halt. Standing in front of her was a tomcat. Behind him were four more tomcats, each bigger than the last. The stench of blood and semen pressed into the room like blotted sweat. Their leader, a calico with a docked tail, sat down and groomed his whiskers.

“Want to share, pretty?” he asked.

Sera’s hair stood on end. There were five of them and one of her.

“Take it, I don’t care.” She tried to push past them, and they shouldered into her path. “You want a face full of biting? Shove off.”

The other cats spread out in a circle like they didn’t hear her. One of them, a big brown tom, trotted behind Sera and took a bite out of the chicken. The spray of juices and spice in the air made her heart race.

“I remember you,” said the calico. His blue eyes were gummy with pus. “That peevish little voice....you’re Red Jenny.”

“Yeah?” said Sera. “And who are you?”

“No one,” said the calico. Another cat was tearing into the chicken now, chewing and tearing noisily. “A sword-for-hire from Trevis by the name of de Marco. Maybe you remember me now?”

Sera’s claws dug into the soft pulp of the floorboards. An alarm was going off in her head. “No.”

“Really? I came here to offer my sword to the Inquisition, only to have them kick me out. Someone told them a tall tale about a bad night I had in Markham, and now they wouldn't accept my contract. Ring a bell?”  

“Oh. Yeah.” One of the servants had told Sera about this guy. Ser What’s-His’-Nuts of the big, scary temper. They’d told her story about a stable boy de Marco had beaten to death for giving his horse cold water and making it sick. Seemed like the kind of thing worth passing along. Sera did that sort of thing a lot. Rooted out bad eggs, kept the worst of the worst from the Inquisition. “Sucks for you, then.”

“I asked around and found out it was you. I thought about finding you and wringing your neck, but they guards wanted me gone. I was on my way out of Skyhold, and then this happened,” said the calico.

Behind them, the chicken was being torn to pieces.

“Seems awfully less important now, doesn’t it?” said the calico.

“No.” Sera’s back was taught as a bowstring. “You’re still a git.”

“I meant that our problems just got simplified," said the calico. "Nothing much matters anymore.”

“That’s not true. It all still matters. If Coryphishit wins the Breach will get torn open and we’ll all be swimming in demons. That matters. The Inquisitor—”

“Is a cat,” said the calico. “Same as you, same as me. The mages in this castle don’t know which way is up. Most don’t even remember their names.”

He stalked in a tight circle around her. A dog was barking somewhere in the yard.

“You know what I think? We’re stuck like this, and that means there’s only one law now.” 

His big paw slapped Sera across the face before she could react. She sprawled on the dirty floorboards, tears stinging her left eye.

“Make sure she stays,” said the calico. “We’ll deal with her when I’m done with my dinner.”

She felt the calico step over her, his scent glands spraying piss and fluid all in her face. Then he shouldered his way in between his mates and started tearing into the chicken. Two more cats sat themselves down in the doorway, barring her escape.

Sera got shakily to her feet. The smart part of her—the person part of her—told her that this was the moment when she should tuck tail and beg for her lfe. It wasn’t worth getting torn to pieces in in a fight she couldn’t win.

But the cat part of her—the teeth and claws part—didn’t eat shit for anyone.

“Hey,” she said. One of the cats turned around with his jowls full of juicy chicken.

Sera’s spread her claws and raked him across the nose. He flinched back, stunned, and he gave him one! Two! Three! more across the eyes.

“Eat it! Eat it! _Eat it!”_

The cats exploded off the chicken like flies off a carcass. They landed on their toes and arched their backs, a line of hissing, foaming jerkoffs.

“Right," said Sera. "Which one of you loses his nutsack first?”

A big white cat made a run at her. They tumbled end over end, a ropy, skinny knot of flying fur, until Sera bit his nuts and he screamed.

“You think I was joking!” she shouted, only she had cat balls in her mouth so it came out more like, “Uu ink aye wuz hoking??”

She kicked him away. He limped off yowling and ran out the door. Then Red Jenny was back on her feet.

A big mackerel ran at her. He was fast, but Sera was faster. He lunged, she jumped, her long tail swinging her around, and she came down claws first onto his back. Her teeth sank between his ears, and shit flew out of him across the floor.

 _Better not be on my chicken._ Sera let him go. When she came down, the other three cats seemed less sure now.

“That’s right. Who’d you think you were dealing with?” said Sera. “Red fucking Jenny.”

The three cats looked at sidelong at each other. Then they all attacked her at once.

Sera lashed out at one, then two. Teeth sank into her tail and she spun about. A claw raked down her back, and she was kicking, jumping, lashing, fighting—

And it wasn’t enough.

They poured over her. One got his teeth into her back. Another bit her ear and wouldn’t let go. A big cat sat on her back legs and clawed her side until she screeched.

Her blood was in the air. She couldn’t fight. She couldn’t move. She screamed every cuss at them she knew, and they didn’t care.

Finally, she pissed on the floor, and it leaked down the slanted floorboards and into the chicken. One of the cats groaned and murmured, “really?”

“Hope you like the taste of last night’s ale,” snarled Sera.  "Piss." 

The calico went for her throat. Sera screwed her eyes shut, but the bite never came. It took her a moment to realize that they’d all stopped. They were all looking at something, and she looked, too.

An enormous black and white cat had waltzed into the tavern. He had a flowing mane of fur down his chest, and his pelt was patched black and white.

One of his eyes was Warden blue, and the other was tarnished gold.

“Right.” Blackwall raised a paw and showed them a gleaming set of razors. “Who wants first taste?”

The calico bared his fangs. He made a leap at him, and Blackwall swatted him out of the air with one paw. The rest of the cats let go of Sera. Big mistake.

She mauled their asses and their nuts and their dicks. Blackwall waded into them, and lay about with his huge, meaty paws. Blood spattered on the floorboards, and the fur was like sawdust in the air.

The calico ran straight into a chair leg on its way out the bar. It didn’t take long for the two other cats to bolt and run out the door. Sera spit and hissed after them.

“You all right?” Blackwall sat down beside her. Other than a few raw pathches of missing fur, he didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Took you long enough," panted Sera.

“That was quite a brawl,” said Blackwall, not unsympathetically.

“Pffft. Dragons are a brawl. That was just some tossers after my….ugh.” Sera turned and sniffed at the chicken. It had been kicked under the table during the fight, but it was damp and stinking. 

It turned out cat piss smelled way worse than people piss.

“You were really going to die over a chicken?” asked Blackwall. 

“You could at least try to sound surprised, you arse. And it wasn’t about the chicken. It was more like…ugh, I don’t remember. Some idiot with a grudge.”

“A grudge against you? Who could ever?”

Sera’s heart melted. She pounced on Blackwall and munched on his head. Blackwall was all fur and muscle, so he put up with it until she chewed his ear and he knocked her flat with one paw. She lay sprawled out there. It smelled nice and musty. His big tail thumped back and forth on the floorboards. Sera tried to grab it, but he somehow kept it away from her without looking.

“Wait!” Sera sprang up. “The Inquisitor. We have to go find him.”

She was halfway to the door when Blackwall called out, “Hold on a minute.”

She skidded in the dust. “What?”

“I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but it’s a mess out there. I’d rather we take a cautious approach. We need to get up high—somewhere that'll gives us a good vantage of what’s going on.”

Sera wanted to keep running, but she guessed that made sense. They’d be in trouble if they ran into a bigger gang of cats.

“We can sit on the tavern roof," she said.

“Good idea. You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah.” Sera stretched her legs. Achey, bleedy, but still working. “Good enough to knock together a few more heads if you’re up for it.”

“Absolutely. Just stay on your guard, all right?’

They trotted up the stairs to her room. Sera hopped up on her window seat and out the window onto the roof. Bird and dank and moss assailed her nose, along with the smell of dead leaves and spiders.

They sat down side by side on the edge. They could see most of the upper yard from up here, and it was hard to pick what to look at first. A cat sniffing along a woodpile. A cat sunning herself in a patch of sunlight. There was barking somewhere far away, and Sera could just see a cat stuck in a tree in the lower yard, dogs snapping and snarling under it.

“Wow. It’s really everyone.” It felt like a stone had dropped into Sera’s stomach. “He really did this to us.”

“He?” said Blackwall.

“Erimond. He did some magicky stuff at the trial.”

“Why would he change us into cats?”

“I don’t know. Weren’t you there?”

“Nah, never go to the things myself.”

A yowling distracted them. There was a ring of cats down in the practice yard. They were arching and hissing at each other, every few seconds clasping in a fury of fur and fangs. 

“This is insanity,” Blackwall said. “Everyone’s lost their minds. The _fights_ out there. It’s like we’re slowly forgetting that we were ever people.”

“But, this isn’t permanent, right? It’s just a spell that can be reversed. Right?”

Blackwall said nothing.

“They can change us back,” insisted Sera. “The mages can. What did we rescue them for if they can’t even do that?”

“I don’t know. The fact is though, if everyone at Skyhold is a cat, and people on the outside find out, we’re in trouble.”

Sera hadn’t thought of that. If Coryphetits and his Venatori found out the Inquisition was a bunch of cats, they were arse-up.

“What do we do then? We can’t fight Erimond like this,” said Sera. Fighting cats on cats was one thing, but cats against a person? She’d kicked a cat before for barfing in her boot, and she didn’t like the odds of that coming back on her. “We need to find the Inquisitor, and Solas, and Vivvy, they’ll know what to do.”

"How would we find them?" 

"They were all at the trial, weren't they? If we go to the great hall, we might find a clue."

"Or get ourselves killed." 

"Well, we can't just sit here."

"I wasn't going to suggest it. Come on, I know a better way."

Blackwall took off across the roof. He walked up the slanted tiles to the tavern's highest point, then hopped onto the castle parapets. Sera followed him.

"We can keep to the roofs," said Blackwall. "This way, we can see everywhere and peer down into the windows. If we notice anything promising, we can sneak inside the castle through one of the holes in the walls."   

"Like the one outside Josephine's office?"

"Exactly."

Sera guessed that made sense. There weren't any cats this high up, and it was unlikely they'd run into Erimond this way. 

"So where to first?" asked Sera.

"I just said. Josephine's office." 

Sera almost tripped. "You don't really think anyone's still there right now?"  

"I just feel better checking there first," said Blackwall. 

Blackwall’s voice was gruff. It was that determined, Warden-y voice he got whenever he set his mind to something, and if that something was Josie, it meant his feet were marching double-time. Sera rolled her eyes and tried to keep up. Trevelyan might be where Josephine was, and if that was all they had to go on, then fine.

“You’re buying me dinner after this,” she said.


	3. Cassandra

 

“Of all the people in Skyhold, I had to get stuck with you,” said Varric. “Can you slow down? Short legs here.”

Cassandra prowled down the dungeon stairs with long, powerful strides. She did not know what kind of cat she was, only that her nose and ears were very sharp. Even warped by magic, she was still a hunter.

Varric straggled behind her. Unlike her, his legs were stunted, his body was shaped like a sausage, and his tail was docked in a manner that resembled his ponytail. He was small, calico, and very irritating.

“What makes you think Alexius can change us back?” he asked.

“He was a Venatori once.” Cassandra turned a corner and started down another flight of stairs. The dungeons of Skyhold had never struck her as needlessly subterranean until now. “If anyone might know how to reverse this spell, it would be him.”

“Assuming he wasn’t in on it.”

“That is unlikely,” said Cassandra, and felt a pang of doubt even as she said it. Alexius may have been a model prisoner, but not long ago he had been a creature of Corypheus. Was it possible that he and Erimond had collaborated with each other? Sent secret messages between their jail cells? “In any case, he is our best hope.”

“Right,” said Varric. “We’ll just waltz in, say, hey, Gerry, you wouldn’t happen to know how to pull our asses out of the fire so your old boss can’t win, do you?”

“He will see reason,” said Cassandra.

“Did you consider that all the prisoners are cats now and can just slip out between the bars of their cells?" 

Cassandra stopped so abruptly that Varric ran into her. She had not considered that.

“Didn’t think so,” said Varric. “And do you mind putting your tail down? There are definitely puckered parts of you other than your face that I'm not interested in seeing.”

Cassandra scowled and lowered her tail. “There were not that many prisoners to begin with. And the Skyhold soldiers should be down below. All will be well.”

“It had better be,” grumbled Varric. “Because you and me are going to have a bone to pick if we end this day finding out we’re stuck as cats.”

“This is hardly my fault.”

“Yeah, all that grousing about needing to keep an eye on the mages, and the one time a mage gets away with something, where were you? Oh, that’s right, reading smut in the back of the great hall.”

“I was not!” 

“Were too.”

“And what of it? The spell was instantaneous. Seekers are not trained to deal with unknowns on this scale.” The fur rose on the back of her neck. They faced each other on the landing, the torches burning oily and black above them. “Why are you even here, Varric? For a man who never fails to blame me for everything, you always seem to manage to stick yourself like a burr to my backside.” 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Seeker, but I’m not exactly packing a crossbow at this moment. These little legs? Not going to work in a pinch.”

“I should have known.”

“Fault me for saving my skin if you like, but you’re a lot bigger than me. And for the record, yeah, I do blame you, Seeker, when shit like this happens on your watch. Let’s hope Trevelyan hasn’t been turned into kitty bits while we’re making a list."

He ploughed on ahead. Cassandra had to lift her right legs out of the way to avoid being bowled over.  There was a great deal she was trying not to think about right now. Where the Inquisitor was, if the Inquisitor was still alive, what Erimond was up, how long until Venatori forces descended upon Skyhold….All of it had happened on her watch.

It was hard not to agree with Varric, sometimes. 

 

* * *

 

They reached the bottom of the staircase, which ended in a heavy, iron-studded door. There was a single tiny window at the top, just big enough for a man to peek out of.

Varric sat down. “Well? I assume you do have a plan B? The keys are on the inside with the guard.”

Cassandra crouched on a higher step. With a spring of her powerful legs, she vaulted onto the door and dug her claws into the wood.

“Oh,” said Varric.

The air expelled from her lungs as she squeezed the upper half of her body through the peephole. Digging her back claws into one side of the door, and her front claws into the other, she tugged herself until she was hanging out into the dungeon, and there swiveled her ears and widened her eyes.

The first room of the dungeon was a small chamber. There was a warden’s office, and two large cells where temporary prisoners were held. A door marked the entrance to the hallway that led to the greater jail, where permanent prisoners were kept in the cells that looked out on the waterfall.

The room was dark and silent. Torches flickered in the gloom. 

“Well?” Varric hissed, his voice muffled through the door. “See anything?”

Cassandra flared her nostrils. Ice water. Sandstone. The oily, tallow reek of fat and ash and unwashed skin. Tears. Blood. Dusty mouse bones. Silverfish. 

Cats.

There was rustling of movement. There were definitely cats in the room, shadows clinging to shadows, but they were either engrossed in their own feline concerns, or else trying not to be seen.

Tugging her rump as far as she could through the peephole, she vaulted herself to the floor. Her paws hit the stone with a soft thump.

Cassandra strode forward. The holding cells were dark, and there were piles of clothing strewn around inside them.

Golden eyes glittered out of the darkness, watching her.

“Oof.” Varric was tugging himself through the peephole. His round little rump plugged the window as tightly as a cork. “How did you fit through this thing?”

“By eating fewer meat pies,” she said.

She could not tell how many cats were in the cells, but it could not have been more than five. She raised her tail and let her pheromones seep out into the dark.

“Soldiers of the Inquisition,” she called. “Stand at attention.”

The glittering eyes gave no sign of recognition. Sighing, she dragged her cheek along a stone pillar, showing them the sinuous ripple of her back and letting them see her size and power. If they wanted to make trouble, they were certainly welcome to try.

“Ack!” Varric hit the floor face first. He shook the dust out of his fur. “Remind me to ask Erimond how in the hell I got stuck with this useless cat body while you got a big scary one.”

“I believe it suits you.”

“You would.”

Cassandra padded to the far door. Between this room and the waterfall chamber, there was a small connecting hallway. It was a tight, dark little area, and an ugly place to find oneself in a fight.

“Listen for my signal,” said Cassandra. “Let me survey the area first, and then I will call you.”

“I got a choice?” Varric sat down and gave the cats in the shadows an uneasy look. “Just hurry.”

Cassandra clawed her way up the door. She stuck her head through the guard window, the same as before, and listened.

There were two cats in the hallway.

The first cat was seated with his back to Cassandra. He swiped his tail back and forth on the floor, his eyes trained above him, where a strange sight was taking place. There, perched precariously on the dungeon door handle, turning a key between its paws with extreme difficulty, was a straggly white kitten. It turned the key slowly, with obvious concentration.

The spectacle was so bizarre Cassandra had to stare. These cats at least had some intelligence left in them. What they wanted from the dungeons, she could not guess, but it could hardly be anything good.

Cassandra measured the distance between herself and the cat on the floor. Then, digging her back claws into the wood, she sprang.

She fell like a brick house on top of him. Her powerful claws clasped at his flesh. The cat yowled and twisted. His claws swiped uselessly at her dense fur, and his kicks at the thick muscles of her belly did not even push the wind out of her. She flowed over him like a landslide, forcing him down beneath her until he was immobile.

“I will spay you with one claw if you do not get off me right now!” The cat was black all over except for his upper lip, which was white like a mustache. He curled it back in a hiss.

“Dorian?” Cassandra got off him. He bolted up and immediately began grooming himself, smoothing his fur and straightening his whiskers.

“Hello.” The little white cat’s eyes were bright blue.

“And Cole?”

“Congratulations, you’ve solved the mystery. Is there a reason you just tried to break my spine?” asked Dorian.

“I assumed you were—”

“What? What in the world could we possibly be? Robbers? Assassins? Or did you simply miss the good old days of roughing up the mage first and asking questions later?”

“I can certainly rough you up now, if you that is what you want!”

“Did I hear Sparkler?” Varric was halfway through the peephole. His front paws scrabbled at the wood as he tried to tug himself through.

“Oh, good, an actual crook,” said Dorian. “Maybe now he can get the door open.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cole.

“It’s okay, kid—oof.” Varric landed on the floor, again, face-first. He shook his fur and waddled up to the locked door. “Let me try.”

“What are you two doing down here?” asked Cassandra.

“Trying to find Alexius,” said Dorian. “I doubt this area of magic counts as his expertise, but if there’s anyone in Skyhold who can decode it, it’s him. Assuming he hasn’t escaped, of course.”

“That was our theory as well,” said Cassandra. “He was not with the Venatori long, but I’d hoped….”

“Trust me, hope is all we have right now,” said Dorian. “Now that the hourglass is against us.”

“What do you know?” said Cassandra.

“Haven’t you noticed?” said Dorian. “Most of the cats in the castle have become feral. The longer we stay in this form, the more permanent it becomes. It might be a matter of hours before we lose ourselves.”

It felt like Cassandra had swallowed an eel. Hot and cold sloshed inside her belly and made the floor tilt. “Permanent?”

“Yes, which is why we need to get this door unlocked _now_ ,” said Dorian.

“Yeah, working on it.” Varric had jumped up to the iron handle and balanced both his and Cole’s weight on either side of it. Together, they pushed the key round and round, until it clicked in the lock. Cole braced a back paw against the frame, and tugged the door until it came loose. Like shadows, they stole inside.

 

* * *

 

Alexius’s cell was the farthest from the door. It was a suite, of sorts, larger than the other cells, with a jut of stone beside its door that afforded privacy and blocked some of the roar of the waterfall. Even through the tectonic gush of millions of gallons of water, Cassandra could smell dusty books.

Alexius was the only permanent prisoner in Skyhold. The bars of the cell were wide enough for a cat to slip through.

“Wait here,” said Dorian. “I’ll speak to him. You three guard the door and make sure he doesn’t get out.”

Cassandra bulled past him. Dorian spluttered and chased after her, the two of them pushing shoulder against shoulder up to the bars of the cell.

“Gereon Alexius?” she called. “Are you there?”

“Where else would I be?”

A pair of green eyes flashed in the dimness. The cell within was fully furnished with a featherbed. An enormous grey cat lay upon it beside an open book.

“Dorian as well? I must truly be blessed,” said Alexius, in a voice dry as thousand-year-old dust. “What brings you to my abode?”

“I expected you to make an escape,” said Dorian.

“In another, better life, perhaps. Now, I have reading to finish.” Alexius rested a paw on the large tome. “And I’d rather Erimond not be reminded of my presence.”

“Why?” asked Cassandra.

“The man hates a rival, and if he imagines Corypheus will reward him for this scheme, he will not want to share the credit with a has-been like me.”

“So, you knew Erimond would attempt this?” said Cassandra.

“No, but it has the stink of his overachievement all over it,” said Alexius. “The timing of the transformation corresponded with the hour of his trial. It left little to doubt." 

“If you are lying,” said Cassandra, “I assure you, I can fit through these bars.”

Alexius rose rump first and stretched. His jaw clicked in a yawn. “Is there something you want, Seeker Pentaghast?”

“We need you to reverse the spell.”

“And?”

“You were once a Venatori. I had hoped—”

“That I had some insight into the nature of this spell and its counter-mechanism? Alas, you were mistaken.”

“You have no theories?” asked Cassandra.

“I did not say that.”

Dorian shoved up beside her. “Share with us, then.”  

“Why?”

“Why? Because your neck is on the line, too,” said Dorian. “You cannot seriously tell me you wish to live out the remainder of your life as a cat.”

“How I live out the remainder of my miserable years is less important to me than it once was,” said Alexius. “What would the Seeker be willing to part with to make me more amenable?”

“That depends,” said Cassandra. “What do you want?”

“A cell not next to a waterfall for a start,” said Alexius.

“That can be arranged—”

“And a promise from my former apprentice.” Alexius turned his slow-blinking gaze on Dorian, its deceptive laziness burning away.

“Name it,” said Dorian.

“I have no illusions about my future,” said Alexius. “I will likely never see Tevinter again, and I suppose that is a fair enough price to pay for my folly. But there are affairs I wish to see ended. There is the matter of my estate. I seem to recall that the Inquisition laid claim to all my lands and titles.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Dorian.

“No?” Alexius’s eyes glittered. “And here I thought the Inquisitor confided in you.”

Cassandra blinked. Dorian’s body suddenly reeked of rage—it steamed off him in a wave of pheromones, the scent of his anger standing up with every hair on his neck. It was so potent, so emotional, that Alexius no doubt smelled it, too.

“Oh dear,” said the former magister. “Rejected again. Poor Dorian. Time and again you follow your heart, and where does it lead you?”

“Just tell me what you bloody want,” said Dorian.

“Very well. I wish you to return to Tevinter, when you are able, and see to my notes. The Inquisition can do what it wishes with my possessions, but my research I would rather see burned. That way, no other fool may seek to undo what cannot be undone.”

“That is curiously wise of you,” said Cassandra.

“I have certainly paid the price for it,” said Alexius. “Do I have you word?”

“Yes,” said Dorian. “On my honor.”

“Good.” Alexius licked the white sock of his paw. “Erimond could not have accomplished a spell of this scale on his own talents, talented though he is. Only an artifact of prodigious power could channel this much magic at range.”

“An amulet, then?” asked Dorian.

“Most likely. It would have to have been small enough to hide on his person without your guards’ detection. Find it, and you will have the means to reverse the spell. Assuming, of course, that Erimond has not destroyed it already.”

A fist closed around Cassandra’s throat. “Would he?”

“It would be wise of him. If the spell was cast via the amulet, its destruction would ensure his victory. But if the amulet is maintaining the spell….”

“Then destroying it would return us to our original form?” asked Dorian.

“In theory. I’m afraid only Erimond knows the truth of it.”

Cassandra nodded. “I have one final question. Are you able to use your magic?”

“Are you able to use your Seeker abilities?”

“No.”

“Hm.” Alexius strummed his whiskers. “There are tales of shapeshifters being able to cast magic in their animal forms, but such knowledge has been lost to time. I have no more access to the Fade than a Tranquil in this body. Only a mind of singular genius could possibly figure out how to cast magic as a cat.”

“I see," said Cassandra. "That is inconvenient.”

“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Alexius, no longer hiding the mockery in his voice. “I’m sure you will find a way to save your Inquisitor and all our lives.” 

“I will. Do you swear to remain here?” asked Cassandra.  

“Your concern is flattering,” said Alexius. “I assure you, there is nowhere else I would rather be.”

“Come on,” said Dorian, walking off. “It’s not what we hoped for, but it’s a start.”

“Good luck to you both,” said Alexius. “And Dorian?”

Dorian turned back.

“Give my regards to Trevelyan.”  

 

* * *

 

“Are you all right?” asked Cassandra, as they turned their backs on the cell.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Dorian kept his head down. His glib tone was a poor mask for anger—it still poured off his body in waves, mingled with a brittle, sharp stress that made Cassandra’s fur stand on end.

“You merely seem tense.”

“Tense? Whyever would I be tense, when we’re facing a lifetime of coughing up hairballs? I’m completely and utterly relaxed.”

“I meant what he said about the Inquisitor.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Cassandra sighed. She had heard rumors that Trevelyan and Dorian had grown close these past few months. It was a development that both scandalized and delighted the court. If not for the fact that Trevelyan was so beloved, and Dorian so attractive, the pairing might have drawn more ire from the Inquisition faithful. Instead, it was merely an embarrassment—a reminder that the Herald was a mortal man with mortal needs.

Cassandra could not claim to understand it. Trevelyan was cold and aloof, and condescending toward anyone who believed in passionate romance. He and Dorian seemed to have little in common, other than the fact that they both took nothing seriously, mocked everything and everyone mercilessly, and lacerated friend and foe alike with barbed wit. Perhaps that was all that was needed. She was happy (and perhaps a little smug) to learn Trevelyan had found comfort in the arms of another, and, eventually, she became glad for Dorian was well.

It saddened her to think it had not worked out.

“Did….are you and Trevelyan not together?” she asked.

“What gave you the impression that we ever were?”

“Most people in Skyhold believe as such.”

“I never took you for a gossip, Seeker Pentaghast. The Inquisitor has made it clear that he only sees me as a friend. What else could I possibly be to him?”

The words were laced with shards of broken glass. Cassandra glanced at him sidelong. “Seeing as I am your friend, I would hope you could confide in me your troubles.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you,” said Dorian.

They walked a few more feet in silence, then Dorian stopped. “I tried to kiss him.”

Despite herself, Cassandra grew giddy at the words. “Tried to?”

“He recoiled, as if I had burned him. He had this frightened look on his face….We haven’t spoken in a week.”

“Oh.” It was difficult to imagine Trevelyan being frightened of anything, let alone a kiss. “Maybe he felt things were moving too fast.”

“Or maybe I misread the situation,” said Dorian. “As usual.”

“Don’t say that. He seems fond of you.”

“No offense, but you’re not in my situation. You’re not a man kissing another man.”

“I….yes. That Is true. Was this why you weren’t at the trial?”

“Yes,” said Dorian. “We’ve been avoiding each other.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“So am I,” said Dorian.

Cassandra bumped Dorian’s shoulder with her own.

As they neared the door, Varric and Cole stood up from where they had been lounging on the flagstones.

“How’d it go?” asked Varric.

“Alexius believes Erimond used an amulet of some kind to transform us,” said Cassandra.

“Great,” said Varric.  “And now we have to get it back?”

“That is the theory.”

“So we’re back to having to confront Erimond as cats. Terrrific.”

Dorian strode ahead of them. He walked down the hallway and clawed his way up the splintery wood of the door. They watched him squeeze through the peephole and disappear on the far side.

“Wishing but wondering, wounded and wistful….He’s worried about him,” said Cole.

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “We all are.”

Cole clambered up the door after Dorian. Cassandra followed him. She was halfway through the peephole of the second door when she heard a hiss.

Dorian and Cole’s backs were arched. A tabby cat strode out of the warden’s office. His stripes were thick and zigzagged, and down his face were two black tear stains. A patch of fur had been torn out of his side, and he looked as if he had not eaten a decent meal in days.

He also carried a dead rat by its tail.

“My my, Seeker Pentaghast. Down in the dark with the dregs?” His voice was oily and distinctly Tevinter.

Cassandra jumped down. "Who are you?" 

"Can't you tell?" 

“Wait a second,” said Varric. The little cat had squeezed half of his pudgy body through the peephole and was struggling to pull the rest out. “Servis?”

“The Venatori from the Approach?” said Cassandra.

“At your service,” said Servis, and gave a little bow. “You’ll excuse the rest of the prisoners—they’ve forgotten themselves, and their manners.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t rip your throat out?” said Cassandra.

“Ah ah ah. I've been a model prisoner. A fact I hope you will pass along to Inquisitor Trevelyan, after this business is concluded.”

He lowered the rat to the floor and pushed it toward her.

Cassandra snarled and batted it aside. Dorian pounced on the dead rat without hesitation, then came up spitting and gagging.  

“Uck, why did I do that?” he said. 

“It seems to be our dilemma,” said Servis, cheerily.

“Did you have any part in this?” said Cassandra.

“Of course not,” said Servis. “I’m a contracted smuggler. Do I look devious enough to pull off such a thing?”

"Erimond was your superior in the Approach," said Cassandra. "He gave you your post."

"And promptly abandoned me to my fate," said Servis. "Believe when I say there is no camaraderie lost between us." 

"Did he ever mention anything about an amulet?' said Dorian. 

“Not that I recall….” Servis drawled out the last syllable and scratched his ear with a back leg. “He would truly have to be a fool to divulge details like that out loud. Is that how he managed to pull this off? Quite resourceful, for a condemned man."

"Almost as if a slippery someone slipped it to him," said Varric.

"I had nothing to do with it!" said Servis. "If Erimond did indeed use an amulet to transform us, he likely smuggled it into Skyhold inside his body. It would certainly explain his bowel troubles."

"Bowel troubles?" said Cassandra. 

“Oh yes, he was grunting and straining terribly. Made an awful stink. The warden yelled at him for it, and Erimond, to all our surprises, was utterly apologetic. Promised to clean up the mess himself.”

“The bastard was hiding something,” said Varric.

That made sense. The Inquisition soldiers had been sure to take everything from Erimond the moment he was arrested. It was impossible that he could have smuggled a magical artifact in—unless he swallowed it beforehand.

“Did you see anything else?” asked Cassandra.

"Alas, no, I took no further interest in Livius's chaffed posterior. You will, of course, tell the Inquisitor how helpful I’ve been?”

“So long as you remain down here,” said Cassandra.

“Of course, of course.” Servis dragged himself up off the floor and collected his rat. "Can I expect a commuted sentence for my troubles?" 

"No," said Cassandra. "

"Then I will still wish you good luck," said Servis. "You are far braver than I, venturing up above. Maker knows you wouldn't catch me dead up there, with those beasts running around."

"Beasts?" said Cassandra. 

"Just listen," said Servis.

They all pricked their ears. There was a sharp, rhythmic noise coming from far away, muffled by the door. It made the hair on Cassandra’s back stand up. Her claws extended, and a growl rose in her throat.

“That sound,” said Dorian, warily.

“It’s….barking,” said Cassandra.


	4. Cullen

Cullen was trapped.

For the second time in his life, he was unable to move, tormented on all sides by snarling, terrifying monsters. His whole body shook and his mind struggled not to shut down. He had to remain himself for the Inquisition, he had to stay present.

His claws dug into the branch of the plum tree. Not two feet beneath the branch, two massive mabari were barking and snapping at him. Saliva flew through the air in spinning strings, landing in his fur and spraying in his face. Every click of their teeth below him champing on dry air made him dizzy.

In retrospect, it had been a mistake to run up the plum tree. The tree was barely bigger than a sapling—the one piece of invasive growth in the middle of Skyhold's lower bailey the Inquisitor had ordered not be uprooted. Trevelyan's hope was that it might fruit in the spring, assuming it was mature enough to do so. In the meantime, it was an eyesore, and not a day had gone by in which Cullen had not glared at it from his office window and thought about how much better the courtyard would look if it was removed.

Now, he was ridiculously glad it never had been.

 _Your lack of vigilance led you here,_ whispered a voice in the back of his mind. _What did you expect, boy? You allowed mages to run free in Skyhold, and now a mage has condemned you to this fate. This would never have happened if you had spared the magister a trial and killed him on sight._

Cullen shivered. That morning, he had gone to the great hall to witness Erimond's judgment, standing in solidarity with some of Skyhold’s soldiers in the back—men and women who had lost comrades to the madness the Venatori had inspired at Adamant. The crowd had been so large that the doors to the great hall had been left open, with people seated on the outside steps. He had pushed inside to stand near the door, and was unable to hear much of the precedings. It was only when Erimond begun to laugh that gooseflesh crawled up his neck and everything went wrong.

Cullen had been around mages long enough to know when a spell was about to be cast. There was always a slight pressure, a tension in the air as the Veil warped and magic was pulled through it. Mages could mask the effect with training and care, but Livius was a man condemned, and his desperation was a slavering, dangerous thing. There was a flash of light, and Cullen had felt a pain behind his eye as sharp as a lyrium migraine. He’d fallen to his knees, and then to his hands.

When he’d next looked up, Erimond stood alone in a hall full of cats.

A moment later, the magister had shot a lightning bolt at the Inquisitor’s throne, and all the cats had scattered.

Cullen’s feet had moved of their own volition. He’d leapt down the stone steps of the castle ten at a time and landed light as a feather. He’d darted through bushes, clinging to shadows, running down and down into the lower yard and to the staircase he knew would take him up to his office and safety. Cats streamed and leapt around him.

He had almost made it across the yard when the dogs had attacked.

The door of their kennel must have been left open. They came tearing around the side of the barn barking and growling, their ears flattened and death in their eyes. They had made a few lunges at various cats left and right, before they zeroed in on Cullen.  

The only thing around him to climb was the plum tree. He’d scrambled up the trunk, and now here he was. Alone. A man stranded on a deserted isle. The entire lower yard now empty save for him, holding the attention of the Inquisition’s resident mabaris.

“I rubbed your belly yesterday,” he murmured to one. They ignored him and continued their circling of the tree. “And I burned a tick off your backside."

Humor eased the tension in his muscles. He sat up, and forced himself to take stock of his situation. He was a cat. A golden tabby, from the looks of it, a true Fereldan mouser.

“Think, Templar,” he scolded himself. “You spent your whole life fighting magic. This is no different. _Think_.”

He could try to cancel the magic with his abilities, though that seemed a pale hope. He hadn’t taken lyrium in almost a month, and his body ached with the withdrawal. If any of his abilities still resided within him, they were so diminished as to be pitiable.

And yet…

He shut his eyes and rested his head on his paws. Magic hung like oily smoke in the air. It was inside him, shoving him into this shape, keeping the part of him that was human suppressed.

That was the best way he could describe it. He was no mage, and arcane theory had always eluded him. He drew on his blood and pushed a smite outward, slowly, as if raising a shout inside him. The magic dimmed slightly—

And then his strength failed him.

His body shook from the effort. He’d tried a scream, and barely managed a whisper.

It was dismaying, what he’d become.

He gazed down into the snapping teeth of the dogs below him.

 _You’re going to die here, boy,_ said the old voice, the voice of Knight-Commander Meredith that always lived in the back of his mind. _The way you should have died at Kinloch Hold. You have no one to blame but your own trusting weakness. You wanted to believe you could be friends with heathens and heretics, and see what it has brought you._

“Hey, Cul.”

Cullen’s ears twitched. He looked around. The voice had come from the high stone wall that separated the lower bailey from the upper bailey. With a shock, he realized he was staring into an enormous golden eye that was suspended in midair.

It took him a moment to realize that the eye belonged to a cat the same stony grey color as the wall, seated on a little jut of rock covered with hanging weeds and moss.

“Bull?” Cullen stood up on the branch he was laying on, and froze when it dipped under him. “Is that you?”

The Qunari had been turned into a cat of enormous size. He was a cloud of fur, a mass of fluff so enormous that it seemed impossible that he could move. His ears were black, his face was black, and the tip of his tail was black, too. The rest of him was like a swirling storm cloud, made slightly more absurd by the twin fangs that protruded like horns from his bottom lip.

“How did you get up there?” asked Cullen.

“You mean how did I get down here.” Bull watched the dogs with his one, bright yellow eye. “I used the stones like a ladder.”

“But why?” Cullen tried to ignore the swaying of the branch under him. The dogs had not yet noticed his attention was on something else.

“Thought I heard someone in trouble. Didn’t want to walk right into the yard and draw the dogs’ attention, so I hopped down here. That’s a shitty mess you’re in.”

“Thanks.” Cullen measured the distance between them. Fifteen yards at least. He huffed a laugh. “Think I could make the jump?”

“If you got to the end of the branch without it breaking, sure.” A breeze stirred the fur around Bull’s face. “But if you missed….”

The span of earth and grass between them was dry and brown. The Inquisition had dragged their dead into this corner when they first arrived in Skyhold, months ago. There were still stains in the grass.

“You’re being very flip about this,” said Cullen.

“Maybe. Mostly because I know you’re not going to do it.” Bull licked his enormous chops. “And because we’ve got bigger problems.”

“Like the fact that everyone has been turned into cats?!” As usual, Cullen didn’t mean to shout and ended up doing it anyway. The dogs paused in their barking. He forced himself to lower his voice. “Or that Erimond is still afoot, doing Maker knows-what?”

“Both of those things are bad,” said Bull, in his sonorous, sleepy way, like a voice from the bottom of the ocean. “But there's not much we can do about either of them. Erimond would kick our asses if he found us. And we don’t have magic. Those dogs, on the other hand, are our problem.”

“No, I didn’t realize,” Cullen said.

“Easy, Commander. I’m not making light. I just meant that more people than you and I are at risk here. Listen. And I mean really listen.”

Cullen strained his ears. Over the barking, he picked up a thousand tiny pockets of sound, at once too many and too few to understand. And then he focused on just one, and realized it was meowing.

There was a chorus of meowing going on all around them. Yowling, screeching, feline wailing—it echoed and pitched from every corner of the castle, the upper bailey included.

“You starting to see?” asked Bull.

Cullen did. Right now, he had the full attention of these dogs. The moment they lost interest, or followed their noses up the stairs, and they’d find slower, easier prey to slake their hunger on. Right now, Cullen was all that stood between them and a massacre of Skyhold’s bewitched denizens.

“Damn it all.” His claws bit into the soft bark of the plum branch. “If someone even wanders down here by mistake--”

“Easy, Commander. We might be cats, but we’re still a hell of a lot smarter than these mutts. We just need to figure out how to get them back in their kennels, or somewhere where they can’t hurt anyone. Then, we find the boss and deal with Erimond.” Bull’s lips puckered in what might have been a smile. “You got your head on straight now?”

He did. Miraculously, now that he had a problem, one in which other people’s lives were at stake, his perception was cold and clear. He dug his claws into the trunk of the tree and climbed up as high as he could to get a better view of the yard.

The barn was a long sprint away. Even if he got there, there was no way he could shut the kennel door by himself.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he shouted to Bull. “I make a break for the kennels, and you run after me. Once the dogs are inside, you close the gate behind them.”

“Assuming you can escape the pen before they tear you to pieces?”

“I’ll find a way,” said Cullen.

He’d been inside the kennels enough times to know the layout. There was a long line of cages, but in the back was a barrel, and above the barrel was a tiny window. If he could make the jump from the ground to the barrel, and then from the barrel to the window, he might just make it.

Or, the dogs would tear him to pieces.

 _Bad odds_ , he thought, but about on par with what he’d faced in the rest of his life.

“It’s a heavy door,” he shouted to Iron Bull. “Think you can manage?”

“Ha! Just worry about your own furry butt. Keep the dogs on you, and I’ll get the gate latched.”

“It has a hook latch,” said Cullen, “so it should catch as soon as you push it to.”

“Good to know. You okay, Cul?”

“I’ll be better in a few minutes.” Cullen tensed and untensed his legs. His body was shivering with fear and from the cold, but he pushed the fear to the back of his mind.

This wasn’t so very different than running from demons, or abominations, or blood mages. 

He could do this.

“Wait for them to start chasing me,” said Cullen. He waltzed along a branch that pointed in the direction of the barn. The dogs followed him, whining and growling hungrily. He walked as far as he could to the end, to where the branch began to bend beneath his weight.

It was a long way down.

_Hit and run. Hit and run. Hit and run._

_Don’t hesitate._

He closed his eyes and drew his breath.

"Maker protect me."

He jumped.

The ground flew up to meet him. His paws hit, and like a spring, the impact vaulted him back into the air. His legs scrambled, and he was running. Barking and snarling surrounded him, and each bark was like a suckerpunch to his ears.

He ran, and felt teeth snap behind him.

He ran, and felt hot breath on his tail.

He ran harder than he had ever run in his life, and it was like the dogs were on top of him. He ran with the thunder of their running under his own.

The grass streaked past him. The door to the kennel was right there.

He vaulted the stone lip of the kennels and darted into the dark. The dogs crowded through the door behind him. Their snarls echoed off the stone walls.

Cullen kept his eyes on the barrel in the back. He kicked off the ground and sprang onto its lid. The window was overhead. Light poured down from it. He bunched up his legs to jump—

And the barrel spun out from under him.

One of the mabari had slammed into it. Cullen fell and hit the ground. The barrel landed on its side and the lid burst open. The mabari skidded to a halt, stunned by the percussion of the barrel hitting the stone, and then dove upon him.  

 _I’m dead,_ thought Cullen.

Teeth dug into his back, and he twisted and raked his attacker across the nose with his claws. He slipped in the mud, the dogs shoving around him, and darted between their legs for the door.

“BULL!” he cried.

Too late. The rectangle of light cast by the ajar door was thinning. It became a bar, a sliver, a thread. The door snapped shut. Its iron latch fell into place in its slot on the far side.

Cullen jumped at the door and kicked off it. He sailed over the dogs, who skidded and hit the door with a thud, and landed in the center of the room.

Window.

_Only way._

Too high.

_No choice._

He made a break for the barrel again. The barking of the dogs was deafening. He leapt onto the overturned barrel and looked up at the window.

He’d never make it. He’d fall, and they’d devour him.

A mabari plowed triumphantly in front of him. Its eyes rolled back white, jaws opened.

Cullen jumped over its head, landed on its back, and catapulted himself into the air.

The windowsill rose up to meet him. He threw out his paws to grab it.

Rising.

Rising.

Rising.

Falling.

_Foolish boy._

It was Knight-Commander Meredith in his mind again, like a nightmare, disgusted and sad.

_Foolish, ignorant boy. Friendless and alone, as always._

_Yes_ , he thought, _as always._

A ball of fluff appeared in the window. Iron jaws clamped onto the scruff of Cullen’s neck, and his body slapped hard against the stone wall.

“Gotcha,” growled Bull. He dragged Cullen up over the windowsill as if he weighed no more than a kitten. Cullen collapsed beside him. His body trembled and he couldn’t catch his breath. The mabari were jumping and scrambling at the wall below where he sat, whimpering and whining and trapped.

“Yeah yeah, go lick your own asshole,” said Bull to the dogs. “You all right?”

“Fine.” Cullen couldn’t stop trembling. He pressed up against the voluminous cloud of Bull’s dull grey fur. It was oddly comforting to be surrounded by it. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” said Bull. “You did good. At least you managed not to get eaten by your country's mascot or whatever." 

Cullen gave a shaky laugh.

 

* * *

 

After Cullen could stand up again without his legs shaking, they climbed down an adjacent fence to the ground. The kennel door rattled as the dogs threw themselves against it, but it held.

“Bull,” said Cullen. “Where are the Chargers?”

“Where I left them,” said Bull. “Sitting on their balls behind the tavern.”

“Why didn’t you bring them?”

Bull stopped and peered at him with his one eye. “You’ve been in that tree since the start of this, huh? Turns out, almost everyone is a cat from the brain down. Don’t know why it hasn’t hit us yet.”

“You mean—” Cullen hissed. Four cats were running down the stairs, straight toward them. Bull sat down in the grass. He watched the cats approach serenely, while his massive claws unsheathed in the dirt.

The four cats pulled up short a few feet away from them. The biggest cat, a panther-like, tortoiseshell female, padded forward and stuck her muzzle out. Hesitantly, Cullen bumped his nose with hers.

“Cassandra?” gasped Cullen.

“Thank the Maker," she said. "Are you two all right?”

“You just missed the show. Cullen almost got his kitty-bits chewed off by dogs,” said Bull.

“We heard the barking—“ said Cassandra.

A black cat with a white lip bowled past her. “Have you seen the Inquisitor?”

“Dorian? No, I...” A chill swept down Cullen’s body. “The last I saw him he was on the throne, right before Erimond destroyed it.”

“And Erimond?” This from the calico, Varric.

“The bastard has gotta still be around here somewhere,” said Bull. “The last human in Skyhold couldn’t have strolled out the gates without causing a stir.”

“Seething, searching, smoldering….” murmured a small white cat. Cole, it sounded like Cole.

“Erimond used an amulet to transform us,” said Dorian. “We need to get it back from him.”

“And do what?” said Cullen. The flood of information was making his head spin. “Can you even cast magic?”

“No,” said Dorian. “I’m not sure anyone can. But we'll worry about that later. Right now, we need that amulet. Once we had it, I can get a better look it and figure out how it functions." 

“We can’t just go after a mage like this,” said Cullen. He didn’t mean to, but he was yelling again. “We need a plan.”

“Bristling, bubbling, burning—”

“Then by all means, _Commander_ , give us a plan,” snapped Dorian.

“Guys?” Varric was looking at Cole. The little white cat’s watery blue eyes had gone wide and distant. “I think the kid’s broken.”

“Oh no,” said Cole.

There was a tremendous crash from inside the castle. They all jumped. Every lounging, ambling, snoozing cat startled and scampered across the lawn. There was a bang, and frizzle of magic, and a window exploded in a gout of flame.

“Erimond,” said Cassandra.

“He’s found the Inquisitor,” said Cole.


	5. Trevelyan

 

“Do you think he’s still up there?” whispered Trevelyan.

“Difficult to discern,” said Solas. “Do the ravens sound disturbed?”

Trevelyan strained his ears. The ravens in the rookery had been cawing raucously when Erimond had run upstairs, but now they were hushed, quietly preening their feathers. 

“They seem calm. I can’t smell him anymore either.”

"Then he has likely moved on. We should consider doing the same."

For the past hour, they had hidden under Solas's sofa in the rotunda and listened to Erimond stride purposefully around Skyhold. The sound of his footsteps stayed maddeningly close. More than once they had tried to sneak out from under the sofa, only for Erimond to turn a corner and send them scampering back under it. The last time, his boots had stopped mere inches from their hiding place before thundering upstairs.

"Do you remember the notes I lent you, regarding the elven artifacts we found in the Emerald Graves?" asked Solas. 

"They're on my desk in my quarters. Why?" 

"I believe they may give us some insight into the workings of Erimond's amulet. "

"You're sure?"

"Yes." 

"Fair enough," said Trevelyan, with forced certainty. "We'll have to cross the great hall to get there. It'll put us out in the open."

"Then that is the risk we must take. Unless we devise a plan of action to mount an offensive against Erimond, we are at his mercy, all while his spell continues toward entropy. We have a few hours at best before Skyhold is the permanent home of several hundred cats." 

"Terrific,” said Trevelyan.

 

* * *

 

It was difficult to overstate just how pisspoorly things had gone. The trial to condemn Erimond was supposed to have been a cakewalk. No one in Skyhold objected to the magister losing his head, and even the Wardens had washed their hands of his punishment. His death would mark the end of the trials that followed Adamant and give the Inquisition some well-deserved sense of resolution.

The great hall had been more crowded than usual that morning. Judgments always drew morbid onlookers, and the rumors of what had happened at Adamant had stirred up a righteous fury. That, and the guarantee that there would be a beheading to look forward to, had drawn more people than usual.

Trevelyan had kept the trial brief. He sat on his throne and said the words he had written the night before, and within ten minutes Erimond’s fate had been sealed. Trevelyan condemned him to die and rose from his seat.

And then Erimond had laughed.

It shouldn’t have given Trevelyan pause, but something in the tone made him glance back. All at once there was a pressure against his temples, a change in the air, and Erimond had tugged something red and bright from under one of the manacles on his wrist.

Pain, immediate, explosive. Fabric had fallen over Trevelyan’s head. He had scrambled, clawing and kicking to get out of what he realized was his own tunic. He emerged to find the great hall swarming with cats, Erimond standing in the midst of them with a stunned look on his face. Then the magister had pointed his hand at the spiked throne of the Inquisitor and bellowed.

Trevelyan leaped a second before the chair exploded behind him. Fire and splinters beat against his backside, and he’d zoomed like a smoking comet down the stairs.

He’d pushed into the throng of stampeding cats and run with them to the back of the hall. Fireballs exploded overhead. Cinders and rubble rained from every side. When Trevelyan at last reached the door of great hall, an impulse drove him left into the rotunda instead of outside with the rest of the cats. The choice made a twisted sort of sense: the rotunda was the first place he often went after trials to seek out the solace of his greatest friend and advisor. Now, the space under Solas’s sofa was just big enough for him to squeeze under. He had lain there, his heart hammering, panting through his mouth.

After a time, Solas had hopped down from his painting scaffold to dart under the sofa beside him.

“It seems we have encountered some difficulty,” said Solas.

And like that, Trevelyan’s pounding heart had calmed.

 

* * *

 

“Dammit. This would all be so much easier if we could just use magic," said Trevelyan.

Solas hummed.

“You have a hypothesis?” asked Trevelyan.

“There is nothing in the rules of transfiguration that state that a transformed mage cannot use magic,” said Solas. “We should, theoretically, be able to access our mana. The draw would be from a smaller mass and center of gravity, but…”

Trevelyan closed his eyes and tried to pull from the magic inside him. It was like trying to turn a wheel that had a metal bar stuck between its spokes. He drew harder, until a strain inside his body warned him off.

“We must be missing something,” Trevelyan said. “Either that, or cat magic is very different from human magic.”

“No doubt there is a solution, but one that is beyond us at the moment. We will have to make do with what we have,” said Solas. “Otherwise, Corypheus wins, and that cannot come to pass.”  

Stress and anger poured off Solas. He was without a doubt the strangest cat Trevelyan had ever seen. He was wrinkled, pink, and hairless, with a naked tail like rat's. Everything about him, from his gremlin face to his bulbous toes to his fleshy belly, was as off-putting as it was adorable. His body radiated waves of heat and was warm like a bladder. 

Unable to help himself, Trevelyan licked Solas between the eyes. Solas startled, then relaxed. Trevelyan began to wash his ears, and then gave his paint-spattered face a good washing, too.

Solas purred.

“We should….hmmm.” Solas’s eyes closed. They sat there, side by side, Trevelyan washing him all over while Solas rumbled. Then his eyes snapped open. “No! We must resist our animal nature! We will have a better chance of assessing the situation once we reach those notes. Come!”

Solas squeezed out from under the couch. Trevelyan shook his head and followed him.

 

* * *

 

The great hall was deserted. The floor was strewn with hundreds of gowns and tunics, broken strings of pearls scattered in the grout between flagstones, with everywhere the reek of cat urine and feces. Treveylan stuck his nose into a trouser leg and sniffed at the muslin within. Solas padded a little ahead of him, pausing every few steps to lift his head and listen.

Magic hung like smoke over their heads.

There were other signs of spellwork. One of the Dalish heraldries Trevelyan had ordered hung as a sign of friendship for Clan Ameridan had fallen off the wall in a smoldering heap, and chunks of mortar were littered everywhere. The stained glass of the windows lay in a thousand rainbow shards on the dais, and icy wind whistled through the empty windows, pushing snowflakes in little drifts on the floor.

“I sincerely hope House Erimond has disowned Livius,” murmured Trevelyan. “Because if they haven't, they’re going to get a bill from me.”

Solas hopped up the stairs and nosed the blast radius where the throne had stood. “It is unfortunate that the windows were shattered. The magical imprint might have been relatively untouched otherwise. It may make reverse-engineering the spell more difficult.”

“There’s that Solas optimism we know and love you for,” said Trevelyan.

Solas gave him a slow blink.

The door to the Inquisitor's tower was closed, but together with their paws they were able to drag the heavy door away from its frame. Solas pinched his body inside, and Trevelyan followed him.

They went upstairs until they came to the Inquisitor’s door. Trevelyan sat down and peered up at the handle above their heads. “This should be interesting.”

“Hold still.” Solas put his front paws on Trevelyan’s back and hopped up on top of him.

“Andraste’s ass, man.” Solas was heavy. His wrinkly, pink cat balls tickled Trevelyan’s neck made Trevelyan tip violently towards unhinged laughter. Solas, ignoring his squirming, stood up and grabbed the handle in his front paws until the latch clicked.

“Come.” Solas hopped down and slipped around the door into the Inquisitor’s quarters. They trotted up the staircase to the bedroom proper.  

The height difference of their surroundings was more unsettling here. The windows above the stairs that Trevelyan expected to be on level with his head instead seemed a mile high. Everywhere there was the rich, loamy sent of dust and mice droppings. A low fire was banking in the fireplace, and the wind shook the windows in their panes.

There were two wine glasses on the table beside the bed. Solas, rubbing his cheek along the table, sniffed at them. He jerked his head back when he caught the scent of who just whose lips had been on the nearest one.  

“Jealous?” said Trevelyan.

Solas wrinkled his snout. “Have I ever told you that I respect you deeply in all areas but one?”

“My mastery of puns?”

“Make that two areas.”

As soon as Solas’s back was turned, Trevelyan hopped up on the table and sniffed the rims of the wine glasses. The spicy scent of Tevinter cologne made his head swim.

It had only been a few days since Dorian had been in his bedroom. They had drunk wine together, bantering and flirting back and forth as they had done for months. There had been an anticipation in the air—an electric charge that signaled something would soon happen.

So many nights they had sat up here, debating and teasing each other. Trevelyan should have known the kiss in the library was coming. He should have reacted better than he had.

There had been a nasty confrontation between Mother Giselle and Dorian, and Trevelyan had intervened. He had stuck up for Dorian as he had countless times before and, as the Revered Mother retreated, he and Dorian had fallen into their easy banter.

_I don’t know if you’re aware, but the rumor in some corners that you and I are intimate._

_That’s not the worst thing they could say, is it?_

_I don’t know, is it?_

_Do you always answer a question with a question?_

_I don’t know. Would you prefer me to answer in some other fashion?_

_If you’re capable._

How many nights had he fantasized about Dorian kissing him? How long had he desperately wanted to pull Dorian into his arms and hold him? And when the moment arrived, what had he done?

He had flinched away.

Dorian had not managed to hide the hurt on his face. He’d smoothed it over with a quip before excusing himself, but it was clear the damage was done. They had not spoken since.

In the days following the incident, Trevelyan had turned the memory over and over in his head, searching for the reason why he had reacted so badly. He wanted to be with Dorian, desperately. After what had happened with Halward in Redcliffe, when Dorian had trusted him enough to show him his true heart, he wanted him even more so.

Perhaps that was the pinch of the problem. Dorian had shown him so much, and Trevelyan had shown him less than nothing.

The truth was that Dorian did not know him. He knew the Herald and he knew the Inquisitor, but he had never met the man behind all the titles, not really. Trevelyan had kept that person locked tight away, where no one else could see.

He hid his true self behind barbs and quips and sarcastic jests. He mocked feelings and tore all of Cassandra's sticky-eyed tales of romance to shreds. Vulnerability was weakness, and weakness was not something he could afford in his position.

How could he ever let Dorian know that behind all the masks, there was just a mediocre, terrified little man from Ostwick?

The thought of revealing his innermost fears and desires, only for Dorian’s face to fall in disappointment when he realized the Inqusitor was not the indestructible idol he believed him to be, made him physically ill. Dorian believed in him more than anyone. How could he reward that belief with the miserable truth?

Better to remain distant. Better to keep the illusion.

Trevelyan washed his paws anxiously. Not that any of that mattered now anyway. Dorian was out there somewhere, stuck as a cat the same as everyone else.

“Inquisitor." Solas was staring at him. His big brown eyes seemed to peer directly into Trevelyan’s soul. “It is best, in these predicaments, to act and not hesitate.”

Trevelyan drew in a breath. “Thanks for the reminder.”

He hopped down from the table and hopped up again onto his writing desk, where Solas sat beside a stack of parchment.

“I believe the amulet Erimond has to be elven in origin,” said Solas. He spread out some of the parchment with his paw.  “While I cannot be certain without first examining it up close, your description reminded me of the shape-shifting amulets mentioned in the stone tablets we recovered in the Graves." 

Trevelyan peered down at the notes and laughed. “I can read! Well, that’s one step forward.”

“Indeed. The ancient elves were masters of shape-shifting, but such amulets could be used to _trap_ an enemy in an animal shape. Each amulet was created with a specific animal in mind, most of them small and easy to kill."

"I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that Erimond didn't find a dung beetle amulet."

"Extremely so." 

"Did the tablets say how to break the spell?"

"Yes. According to the tablets, once an amulet is shattered, the transformed being should revert to its natural form."

"That sounds doable." 

"Perhaps, but there may be complications."

"Such as?"

"These amulets were meant to trap a single person. Erimond's amulet managed to transform all of Skyhold. Either it was uniquely powerful, or the magic within the amulet has become unbalanced over time."

"So there's a chance this thing is already a dud?"

"Yes. There is also a chance that smashing it could unleash a wave of rebounding magic that kills every cat affected by the spell."

"Well." Trevelyan let the contingencies swirl around his head before banishing them. "What would you do to decrease the odds of that happening?"

"I would bring the amulet back to the exact spot at which it was used. The arcane imprint that remains in the great hall may provide the amulet a current through which its magic may then run its proper course."

"Then that's what we'll do," said Trevelyan, with confidence he did not feel. "You're aware that all of this hinges on us first getting the blasted thing from Erimond?" 

“I am aware. However, Erimond will not be expecting any sort of retaliation from us, let alone careful planning. A series of enchanted snares, strategically placed around Skyhold, might be our best chance. I believe this one—” Solas put his paw on a complicated diagram in the upper quadrant of the page. “—which the Tevinters adapted from the ancient elves, should be more than up to the task. I believe your scouts gave the few we recovered to Arcanist Dagna-.”

Their ears pricked at the same time.

Someone was coming up the stairs.

Someone with two legs.

“Dammit, hide!” hissed Trevelyan.


	6. Erimond

 

Erimond had won. 

With a single elven trinket, he had won the war. The Inquisition was finished. The Elder One would rule this world.

If only he was not allergic to cats. 

Erimond sneezed explosively. His eyes were puffed up and his nose was dripping stinging mucus. Cursing, he scratched at his eyes and dug through the guard’s armor on the floor until he found the key to his manacles.

“Damn it all.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and unlocked the shackles around his wrist. The great hall reeked of cat dander, and it was all he could do not to wheeze.

He needed to get out of here. He would take a horse from the stables, find the nearest road, and keep riding until he found a Venatori camp. Once there, he would send a message to Corypheus detailing what he had done. They would march victorious through the gates of Skyhold and claim the castle for their own.

The manacles thudded to the floor. It was almost disappointing how easy it had been. All those weeks of planning, of hiding the amulet first in his clothes and then in his bowels, and it had all gone off without a hitch. Every detail had fallen into place exactly as he expected, all save one: Trevelyan had gotten away.

Trevelyan, who had sat on his throne with his boot on his knee, Trevelyan who had treated him as just another prisoner, Trevelyan who had sentenced him to die without a glance back-he had gotten away. Erimond had tried to stop the bastard with a fireball, but Trevelyan had skittered off with the stampede of cats and vanished, no doubt to wedge himself under a cupboard somewhere. 

Erimond rubbed his wrists. It did not matter. The transformation would become permanent in a few hours, and the precious Herald of Andraste would be relegated to a pathetic life as a cat. Erimond had already bested him. It was over.

He slipped the blood red amulet into his sock and made his way to the open doors of the great hall. Icy wind blew back his hair. The yard below was a mess of cats, their mewls carrying up to him in a plaintive wave. It amused him to think that the greatest minds of the Inquisition were now no better than dumb beasts, with every noble lord and lady who had come to petition the great Inquisitor now down there in the muck, fighting and rutting like vermin.

When the Venatori returned, they would use the cats as target practice. A bolt of lightning here, a wave of fire there. The Inquisition would die in a single act of pest control.

For the first time that day, Erimond felt doubt creep in.

He had planned to present Trevelyan to the Elder One as a trophy. Without him, there was a very real chance Corypheus would be displeased. The Elder One was fixated on Trevelyan, and He would never rest until He was sure, absolutely sure, that the Inquisitor was dead. None of Erimond's achievements today would amount to anything without that centerpiece. It was suddenly very easy to imagine some other Venatori digging through the horde of cats and yanking Trevelyan up by the scruff of the neck, all but offering him up to Corypheus on a silver platter.

From here, Erimond could just see the crenels of the castle gatehouse and the rugged mountains beyond. As eager as he was to get on the road, it would be over his dead body that some meagre foot soldier stole his victory from him.

No, he needed to see this through.

If only he didn't have blasted _allergies_. 

"Uck." He picked up a lady's smock from the floor and blew his nose in it. He should arm himself, just to be sure. There was no doubt in his mind that the amulet had ensorcelled the entire castle, but he still felt naked without a staff. Having studied maps of Skyhold procured by Venatori spies, he even had a decent sense of where to go. 

Tucking the soiled smock into his hempen belt, he opened a door to the right of the dais and descended down a stairwell. 

 

* * *

 

The stairwell delivered him down into a freezing cavern behind a waterfall. There were two cats down here: a tiny calico with a flat face and a mangy, hang-dog cat with mucusy eyes, a shaved body and a fluffy head with drooping mustachios. The latter mewed at him glumly and then hissed when Erimond seized a staff from one of the enchantment presses.

He waved the staff a bit to get a feel of it. It was decent work, suitable for a man of his height and well-balanced. He tapped it on the floor and considered the tiny calico in front of him.

It occurred to him that he had no idea what Trevelyan looked like as a cat. The seconds between the transformation and the Inquisitor darting off his throne had been brief. It was entirely possible that Erimond would have to go through Skyhold cat by cat until he found the one he was searching for, and even then, how would he know for certain?

The calico rolled over. It was a female, he saw now. That was one dead giveaway. He pointed his staff at her. She swatted at the focus stone, making a deep purring in her chest.

He shot off a lightning bolt. The calico bolted upright a moment before the magic scarred the floor where she had been.

“Run and hide then,” chuckled Erimond, as the cat scampered off. "Consider yourself lucky that you're quick. I doubt most of your friends today will be able to say the same."  

He spun the staff once, then returned back upstairs.

 

* * *

 

He decided to canvas the lower floor. The entrance to the next nearest door in the great hall was blocked by rubble, so he picked another at random. He marched up and down hallways, checking off empty rooms and waving his lit staff into dark corners. Reflective eyes stared back at him. Black cats, white cats, cats with stripes and cats with splotches- all of them lacked Trevelyan's gauntness, his arrogance. He shot off lightning bolts at the cats that were in range but rarely landed a hit.  

After an hour, his feet led him back to the rotunda. Garish murals lined the walls. He walked up the steps, taking in the dusty tomes and the strong, musty odor of leatherbound books. A dead-eyed cat with a sunburst scar on its forehead blinked up at him blankly from a scarred wooden table. Other cats shrank back from him to hide under tables and on top of bookshelves.

“You can’t hide forever, Trevelyan!” He kicked a fat tabby in the ribs and sent it flying against a wall. It scrambled, kicking up a rug and darting downstairs. “I’ll find you if I have to break every cat in Skyhold’s neck!” He sneezed. “Better yet, I’ll set them all on fire.”

He took the next turn in the stairwell and came into a rookery. Crows and ravens glared down at him in silence.

“Now this is interesting.” He picked up an encrypted message on a table. “Your spymaster’s little roost? I wonder, will you reveal yourself if I skin the red whore inch by inch, nose to tail?”

Tucking the encrypted notes into his belt, he turned to start down the stairs again and stopped. An iron birdcage sat on a crate beside an altar of Andraste. It was more than big enough for a raven, to say nothing of a cat.

He gripped it by its iron handle and took it with him downstairs. If he was going to catch a cat, he would need something to hold it in.

“What say you, Trevelyan? Mayhaps I’ll feed you to one of your dogs. Better yet, I’ll do it while seated on your throne, my boots kicked up on your helm— _achoo_!”

Agitated, he wiped his nose and returned to the great hall. 

He was considering scouring the gardens, when a movement caught his eye.

The door to the Inquisitor’s tower thudded closed.

His pulse quickened. Could there still be people in Skyhold? The only other explanation was that these cats were craftier than he had given them credit. What were the odds that Trevelyan, now a cat, had returned to his own bedroom—the most obvious and therefore least likely place to search?

Erimond strode across the great hall. Quietly, he opened the door to the Inquisitor’s tower and stepped inside.

 

* * *

 

The tower was silent and cold. Many of the walls were unfinished, and ravens huddled in the chill. Erimond took the creaking stairs all the way to the top, where he found a chamber door open.

Erimond stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Sunlight streamed through tall windows atop a staircase. Dust motes shimmered in the air. Plush, red carpet muffled his footsteps as he crept to the top.

The bedroom was sparse and spare. There was an enormous bed, an austere desk, and a handsome rug depiciting the eye and sword of the Inquisition. Trevelyan’s famed black duster hung on a dummy by the wall, and beside it was his staff in its stand. Erimond crossed to them and promptly sneezed all over himself. Cursing, he picked up the sleeve of Trevelyan’s duster and wiped his nose with it.

Something rustled.

Erimond froze. He turned slowly in place. The bedskirt was swaying slightly.

A smile curled up Erimond’s lips. He squatted down and pointed the focus crystal of his staff right at the swaying bedskirt. Gathering magic into his hand, he shot a tiny pulse of force under the bed.

A cat tumbled out the far side. It started to run for the stairs, then, seeing the door closed, turned and faced Erimond.

“Oh.” Erimond laughed. “Truly? And to think I worried about recognizing you.”

A sleek, silver tomcat crouched before him. It was wiry with a pointed, triangular face and a shock of a fluffy grey tail. Like every other cat in Skyhold, it hissed at him.

Unlike every other cat in Skyhold, it had a sliver of green pulsing Fade energy in its left paw.

“Don’t make a big deal out of this, Inquisitor.” Erimond pointed his staff at him. “You’ve lost, simple as that. Spare yourself some dignity and get in the cage.”

Trevelyan sat down and began washing his paw.

“Impudence.” Erimond raised his staff to strike him when something darted out from under the bed and bit him on the ankle.

A frothy roar of rage bubbled up his throat as he twisting around, meeting the eyes of an ugly, naked cat clutching the calf of his right leg with its fangs buried in his flesh.

He flung fire at it. The cat released him and darted back under the bed.

“Brought a little friend, did you? Was that that knife-ear look alike of yours? It figures that under all that false poise he’d be an ugly little rat.”

Trevelyan sprang onto the bed and leaped at Erimond. Erimond’s fist connected with the side of Trevelyan’s head and sent him flying across the room.

Trevelyan lay dazed on the floor. The naked cat crept out from under the bed to crouch over him, his gaze at Erimond one of utter disdain. 

Erimond pointed his staff at him.

The naked cat did not budge. Trevelyan gave a low growl, and the naked cat growled back.

“I suggest you listen to your friend, elf,” said Erimond.

Trevelyan growled again. After a moment, the naked cat stepped aside.  

“I thought so.” Erimond grabbed Trevelyan by the scruff and threw him into the iron cage. He slammed the door shut and threw the bolt lock. “Not so bold without your magic now are you are? And as for you—”

He spun and pointed his staff, prepared to obliterate the naked cat—only to find it gone. He turned in place, but it had vanished.

“I’ll remember you,” he said. “When I return here in glory, I’ll skin you for a coin purse. _Achoo_.”

Erimond wiped his nose on his sleeve. It was sodden with mucus. Hefting the cage in one hand, he lumbered down the staircase and threw the door open. On the threshold, he paused and peered into the cage.

“To think, all this time I’ve been calling you Inquisitor. Why play at formality? _Jack_.”

Trevelyan glared up at him. Giving the cage a vicious shake, Erimond descended down the tower steps.

 

* * *

 

Sneezing, eyes watering, Erimond could not help but feel smug on his way downstairs.

He had done it. Mere hours ago he had been a prisoner, shackled and demoralized.

Now, he had _truly_ won the war.  

“Oh, the Elder One is going to have a splendid time with you,” he chuckled.

At the bottom of the stairs, Erimond heard a creak.

He looked back up the staircase. The naked cat was seated on the landing above.

“Back for more?” Erimond thrust his staff and shot a spear of ice up the stairwell. The naked cat shrank back. “I thought so.” Erimond was tempted to bring the whole tower down on the little vermin, but then remembered that this tower was going to be his soon, and continued on into the great hall.

The great hall was silent. Erimond set the cage down and, wincing, tugged one of the pieces of encrypted parchment from his belt and blew his nose with it.

“I bet you’re enjoying my state, aren’t you? Don’t worry, Jack, there’s plenty of time for me to clean up on the road. You, however….” Erimond gave the cage a kick. “In two hours, you will look like this forever.”

Erimond picked up the cage and started toward the entrance doors. The sun was setting through the shattered stained glass window.

A shadow on a balcony above caught his attention. Erimond stopped and squinted.

A cat sat on the balcony railing like a statue. It was one of the most elegant creatures he had ever seen, perfectly groomed, with chocolate fur as smooth as if it was carved from mahogany. She blinked down at him placidly with narrowed, liquid eyes, and extended her claws.

Erimond’s reflexes were good. He had been first of his class at the Circle of Vyrantium, was a renowed duelist and a sniper with a lightning bolt. He could spin on a heel, turn in the air, and rebalance his weight like a finely balanced instrument.

None of that mattered as he gaped at the cat swandiving at his face.

Her claws raked his eyelids and sent him staggering back, arms windmilling. He screamed into the hot flesh of her belly as her teeth seized into his throat. The cage went flying. He lurched, fell, and clutched at the beast with both hands as blood burst into his mouth.

Fire erupted from his palms. The cat shot off into the air like a spark. Erimond slapped a palm to his bleeding throat and staggered to his feet. The cat had landed not ten feet away, light as a dancer, and now posed, one paw forward, her sinuous tail curled in a question mark as if to say, _well_?

Erimond could barely see her through his sneezing. It didn’t matter. He was bigger, he had magic, and he was done being toyed with.

“It ends!” He summoned up a vicious lightning bolt, impossible to dodge.

The brown cat began to glow.

His breath caught. An aura surrounded her like an hourglass. She tilted his head at him, then—

A streak of energy zigzagged at him. Something wickedly sharp sliced into the meat of his ankle. Erimond screamed. The cat came to a skidding halt behind him, blue and gold light blurring around her, a spectral sword in her mouth.

“Mow!”

Erimond spun about. The naked cat had loped into the hall.

“Mrrowow? Wrrao maaorraar?” asked the naked cat.

“Mrrrraoo mow?” the chocolate cat answered back in a low, sarcastic voice.

The naked cat glared at her, and then he began to glow blue, too.

Erimond recognized that spell. He cast a barrier around himself, and the naked cat's lightning bolt shot off it harmlessly. 

This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. 

The chocolate cat launched into the air. The air sizzled around her spectral blade, and Erimond lurched back as it struck the translucent shell of his barrier. The chocolate cat hammered at it again and again—fade-stepping into his blind spot to keep him off-balance. The naked cat pinged fireballs at him with its mouth.

“Enough!” Erimond threw his hands out and blasted them both with fiery force. A window broke somewhere. Both cats went flying. Forgoing his barrier, he ran to where Trevelyan’s cage was capsized against some rubble. He grabbed it by the handle—

And snatched his hand back with a yelp. The cage had shocked him. Volts of purple electricity danced between its bars.

Trevelyan, his paws gripping the bars, hissed at him.

Erimond bit down the pain and seized the cage. He clutched it to his side and backed slowly towards the entrance doors of the great hall. The naked cat and the chocolate cat advanced slowly toward him.

“Stay back.” He pointed the focus stone of his staff at Trevelyan, then reached down with his the same hand to tug the amulet from his sock. “Unless you want to see what happens when a man manifests inside an iron cage ten times too small for him.”

Both cats halted. The magic that surrounded them sputtered out of existence.

“I thought as much.” Erimond wiped his nose. “All I would need to do is destroy this amulet to turn your precious Inquisitor into slotted meat. Wouldn’t that be a fitting end for the false Herald? Guts spewing between bars of a cage built for vermin, flesh pouring out like sausages from a grinder. Now I said stay back!”

The two cats did not move.

His back met stone. Pawing behind him, he found himself right beside the open doors.

“Follow at your own peril,” he snapped. “But I will kill him.” 

Erimond turned and fled down the steps. As he ran, a group of cats darted up the steps to meet him. He pointed his staff at them, and they halted.

“I’m leaving,” said Erimond. “And there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

The cats hissed at him and raised their tails. Still, when he pointed his staff at the cage, they all stepped aside.

“How disgustingly loyal. I’m almost impressed.” He held up Trevelyan’s cage. “Look upon what you inspired, Inquisitor. Know that within a few days it will all be mine, and these wretches will be turned into slippers for the Venatori!”

The naked cat and chocolate cat stood at the top of the steps now. Keeping them in his field of view at all times, Erimond backed slowly down the stairs into the lower bailey. Deciding against a horse, he backed out past the porticulis and onto the narrow bridge that linked Skyhold to the mountain pass.  

The cats pressed close behind him. “Nah-ah-ah!” He pointed his staff again at Trevelyan. The cats stopped and did not follow.

All save one.

The handsome black tom with a white mustache stepped forward from the crowd. He switched his tail anxiously and let out a long, anguished cry.

Trevelyan reached for him between the bars and mewed.

Then Erimond turned and ran. He did not stop running until he was halfway down the mountain pass, where he broke off into the forest, onto the wild road before him.


End file.
